The present invention relates to an improved form of Schnable-type railway car that is adapted to transport long, rigid, loads intermediate separable fore and aft wheeled sections. After the load has arrived at its destination and has been removed from between fore and aft sections, the empty sections are joined together and returned to a central location where they are held in preparation for transporting another load.
Fore and aft wheeled sections of a Schnabel car have been limited to a length requiring not in excess of twelve supportive axles in order that coupled cars may readily negotiate curves in existing railway track. Current design in the nuclear, chemical, and other fields, however, calls for larger, longer and heavier equipment that requires upward to thirty-six axles for its support. This equipment is larger than may be readily carried over hills, through tunnels and around curves on any but selected sections of our existing railway track. However, such loads are readily adapted for shipping on barges or ships over waterways where there are no such size and weight limitations. It is obvious, however, that waterways do not always extend the entire distance between the manufacturing plant and the place of installation. Therefore, it has been proposed that "oversize" Schnabel-type apparatus be used to first transport a load to a barge or ship from its place of manufacture over carefully improved roadways. The load then would be placed on a ship and transported over the waterways to the closest port facilities adjacent its final destination, at which point the load would again be transferred to a waiting Schnabel car that had been transported in an empty condition between port facilities over existing track. The now greatly elongated Schnabel car assembly would then be moved over suitably modified track to its place of final installation.
Frequently bridges must be strenghtened, curves in the track straightened, and the road bed improved for those track sections over which a loaded Schnabel car is to be used. However, it is still necessary to transport an empty Schnabel car for long distances between the place of manufacture and the final destination. Inasmuch as linked Schnabel cars, even when empty, may be much too long to negotiate the curves on many sections of railway track, known apparatus is severely restricted in use to only those sections of railway track that have been completely rebuilt according to predetermined standards.